Pages

Thursday, October 29, 2015

The desire & burden of ministry?

Last weekend I preached my second consecutive sermon in our current series on the book of Ecclesiastes. As I was doing prep I stumbled over this line (talking about Ecclesiastes 3:10-11)...

We have the desire of eternity in our hearts, and the weight of eternity upon our shoulders.In short, it says that we, as humans, are acutely aware of our mortality, and yet have an internal longing for something eternal. With this being the case, while we might strive to attain and achieve things which will last with the work of our hands, everything we reach for to satisfy this yearning ultimately falls short and leaves us feeling empty.As I've sat with this idea, I've begun to sense a similar thing with ministry.We can have the desire for ministry in our hearts, and the weight of ministry upon our shoulders.For, we can have a near unquenchable and undeniable desire to serve God and grow the Kingdom of God, yet, have upon our shoulders a (Real or imaginary) workload that's never ultimately satisfied and can leave us feeling worn down.Now, I don't want to come off like a bemoaning martyr and that ministry is a "Godly burden."But I wonder how many people truly feel this way about ministry...